Claim your treasures or they will be gone soon: The Home Front

I wonder who in the world decided that along with the title of mother comes the title of “curator for life of all of my precious junk?" Before I recently began the odious task of cleaning out my garage, I asked each of my adult children to come over and collect their valuables. I gave them a seven day stretch to lay claim to their treasures or they would be donated to a charity or tossed out at my discretion.

Seven days came and went and sure enough nothing was collected or called for. So I began separating the junk into two piles. One pile was "the going to charity" stuff, and the other was, “what in the world is this and why in the world would anybody need it?" trash pile.

During the seven day stretch, I saw each of them for one reason or another. Be it for me to either babysit, loan money to, fix dinner for or for me to listen to them complain about something only to be turned off by them when I wanted to complain about something back to them. Never once during the week of separating junk from “icky” junk did any body say, “Hold on there, mom, that is precious stuff. You can’t give that away, it’s mine; I'll take it and find a place for it. “

Only after I had everything sorted did it occur to them that I was intent on giving their precious, semi-precious and even their “icky” stuff away.

It truly was amazing to watch their “A HA” moment unfold together. There they were, the Minute Man, my son, who will do anything in the world for me "in a minute," and Mrs. Left, my daughter who is still so far from the right seeing the garage in a totally new light. Finally my daughter spoke first, “Hey, mom, what are you doing here?”

When I told her that I was getting rid of all the junk and that I had told her I was going to do it the week before, she started digging and disrupting my piles murmuring under her breath, “You can’t get rid of this valuable stuff.”

Her brother joined in the scavenging of the piles while intermittently I heard them exclaim, ”Oh no, she is not giving this away. It is a good thing I went through this.”

Each of them went through the piles, taking out what they felt they could never live without, even though they had lived without it for months and years, while it collected dust in my garage. Soon my piles were gone replaced by their two piles.

With a look of “How could you do this?” on their faces, they both assured me their precious stuff would have a new home in a matter of days.

That was six weeks ago and the piles of his and her stuff remain. But, by the end of this week, my garage will once again be my own, and I will retire as curator of my adult children’s junk.

One thing I have learned through this cleansing experience is that it is so easy to be charitable with someone else’s stuff.